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Thursday, June 21, 2012

Life with Dogs: Never a Dull Moment

For the past couple years our one pug Frank lost all his energy. He lost that spark of life that was in him and for a while we thought it was because he had a slipped disc in his back. We had him on pain meds, which helped, but he still wasn't himself.

In the spring both our pugs had their annual vet visit for vaccinations and the like, which is when our vet noticed that Frank's hair looked really thin and lackluster. She suspected that he wasn't in pain at all, and that he really had low thyroid levels. A week later, the results of a blood test confirmed that he, indeed, had hypothyroidism.

Now he is on a thyroid supplement and within a few days, we noticed a marked improvement in his quality of life. So much so that he's making up for lost time - and getting himself into trouble.

Prior to his low energy issue, Frank was a dog that needed to be walked daily or he would get into things he wasn't supposed to: the bathroom trash, any food left on the end table or coffee table. My husband and I used to say it's a good thing he's not a lab or else our kitchen counters would be in danger too!

Well now that he's back to his old self, we have to remember what it's like to have a dog that gets into trouble. On Sunday we went over to my in-laws house with the dogs and got to talking around the kitchen table and so we weren't paying attention to the dogs. My sister-in-law went into the guest room where her purse was and came out to the kitchen holding a half empty bag of trail mix and said, "Frank was eating that out of my purse."

That's when panic set in. The trail mix was full of raisins! As many dog owners are aware (and if you're not, you need to be!), raisins and grapes are extremely toxic to dogs because they can cause renal failure.

After a panicked call to the emergency vet down the street, they told me to bring him in and they would force him to vomit them up.

We brought him into the office and they took him to the back room to give him an injection of something that would basically make him empty the contents of his entire stomach. Better them than me! An hour, many piles of regurgitated raisins (along with a feminine hygiene product that he must have rooted out of the trash, nasty dog!) and almost $200 later, an injection was given to reverse the process and he was ready to go home.

Does this look like the face of a dog that just came back from the emergency vet?

Before they brought him back out, they mentioned to me that despite the gross-out factor of having to deal with all the stuff he puked up, they thought he was the cutest thing because once they gave him the reversal injection, he was back there wagging has tail, just happy as a clam.

Once we brought him back to my mother-in-law's house, he immediately started begging for food and looking for trouble. I wish I were that chipper after I puked my guts out. Guess somebody didn't learn his lesson. We're definitely going to have to keep a much more diligent eye on that trouble maker.

Dogs. Gotta love how simple their minds are.

The only good thing about this recent rash of 90+ degree heat here in Michigan is that all I have to do is walk Frank around the block and he's tired out for the rest of the day. Given how much trouble he's getting himself into, I need all the leverage I can get.